Once a Year
by Wander099
Summary: Jack has a somewhat irrational fear and is trying to avoid dealing with it. To succeed he needs Carter’s help. When she finds out exactly what he is up to will she help him? Meanwhile Sg1 and Sg2 both are on missions and encounter something unexpected
1. Chapter 1

Title: Once a Year

Author: Wander099

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate Sg-1 or anything affiliated with it, if I did believe me things would be pretty different.

Rating: T

Pairing: light Jack/Sam

Summary: Jack has a somewhat irrational fear and is trying to avoid dealing with it but to succeed he needs Carter's help. When she finds out exactly what he is up to will she help him? Meanwhile Sg-1 and Sg-2 both are on missions and encounter something unexpected.

Author's Note: Okay I am already planning a sequel to this one that will focus more around Jack and Carter so shippers be patient. Some chapters will be short and some may be quite long. Now that's enough of me blabbing, on with the story.

Part One – No Repeat Performances Please

Colonel O'Neill sat down on a bench in the locker room engaging in something quite rare – deep thought. He was in one hell of a predicament this time, possibly even worse than the incident with Irgo and that had been quite bad. Jack's birthday was only a week away.

It wasn't that he was trying to deny the fact that he was getting older, he had already crossed that particular bridge and come to terms with that fact. It didn't really bother him too much. The problem was that he was attempting to avoid a repeat performance of an embarrassing experience that had happened at a surprise party before he had joined the SGC. Some would classify such avoidance as irrational, unreasonable or even a sign of unhealthy behaviour while he saw it as merely being cautious.

He wasn't worried about anyone finding out the specifics of what happened, all of the witnesses were too drunk or had behaved equally bad or worse so they weren't talking. Even now, years after the incident, if it even occurred, may or may not have involved cake (why do you think he likes pie so much?), duct tape, a dunk tank, some strippers and a great deal of beer.

Ever since then he had managed to disappear on his birthday through various means and somehow avoid suspicion. Vacations, sick days, missions or just plain hiding were among the many tactics he had employed. But this year was different. He was due to arrive back form a mission two days before, ruling out that escape and he had pprocrastinated so much on his paperwork that Hammond would never permit even one vacation day until it was done and a sick day would simply draw attention to him, which was exactly what he was trying to avoid. And he didn't much relish playing hide and seek with the marine guards.

Of course there was a chance that no one would realize anything and he would escape unscathed but all it would take is a quick glance at his personnel file and it would all be over. He would be found out. No, he couldn't just sit and do nothing, hoping that it would blow over. He had to do something, he just didn't know exactly what yet.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Once a Year

Author: Wander099

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate Sg-1 or anything affiliated with it, if I did believe me things would be pretty different.

Rating: T

Pairing: light Jack/Sam

Summary: Jack has a somewhat irrational fear and is trying to avoid dealing with it but to succeed he needs Carter's help. When she finds out exactly what he is up to will she help him? Meanwhile Sg-1 and Sg-2 both are on missions and encounter something unexpected.

Author's Note: Okay I am already planning a sequel to this one that will focus more around Jack and Carter so shippers be patient. Some chapters will be short and some may be quite long. Now that's enough of me blabbing, on with the story.

Part Two – Sg-2's Bad Luck

The moment Sg-2 set foot on the alien world the hot muggy air hit them like a brick wall. Despite knowing ahead of time what to conditions to expect thanks to the MALP's readings the team was surprised at how sticky it was here. Once the last team member had stepped through the gate it shut off behind them.

Sg-2 seemed to be drawing the worst missions lately. Ferretti was unsure if her preferred this planet to the one he and his team had visited the week before which was its polar opposite. Polar being the key word here. Normally an Sg team would never be sent to an ice planet because of the poor odds of finding anything technologically useful or even a civilization on the planet. It wasn't exactly the climate the Goa'uld sought out.

However this ice planet had been different. The MALP detected a faint energy signature that indicated that there might have been technology worth obtaining or maybe even a small settlement. As it turned out the source of the readings was a crashed ship buried under several feet of ice. After hours of digging in the biting cold the team had managed to unearth it.

Even if the ship had been in salvageable condition the technology rendered it worthless. It was an old Goa'uld vessel that had probably used at one time for transporting cargo and as far as they could tell it had not been one of the effective models. The navigation and weapons systems were terrible and had major flaws; the latter was probably the cause of the crash in the first place. It didn't appear to be very fast or maneuverable either. It was doubtful that many had been made and that the designer had been allowed to live long.

In short the entire expedition had been a complete and utter waste of time on everyone's part and the only resulting developments had been snow blindness in one case and more than a touch of frostbite for everyone who had the misfortune to have set foot on the cursed ice planet, nothing good in the slightest.

This mission was not looking any better than the last. Instead of harsh biting winds and blowing snow the air was damp and muggy and swarms of insects attacked periodically. Hopefully there would be no carnivorous fauna or vicious creatures to encounter, but Ferretti wasn't holding his breath on that one. If the bad luck continued this was going to be even worse than frostbite, his only option was to complete the mission and get back home as soon as he possibly could.

Ferretti sighed sometimes he thought a greater power had something against him but he always quickly dismissed the thought as ridiculous, even if there was a higher power why would it take interest in one insignificant soldier from earth when there was an entire galaxy to watch? He called out to his team, "Alright, let's go have a look at those ruins. The sooner we finish up here the sooner we can get the hell out of here."

He slapped at a mosquito-like bug that had landed on the exposed back of his neck and attempted to sting him as he led his team deeper into the unexplored and decidedly unfriendly looking jungle before them.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Once a Year

Author: Wander099

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate Sg-1 or anything affiliated with it, if I did believe me things would be pretty different.

Rating: T

Pairing: light Jack/Sam

Summary: Jack has a somewhat irrational fear and is trying to avoid dealing with it but to succeed he needs Carter's help. When she finds out exactly what he is up to will she help him? Meanwhile Sg-1 and Sg-2 both are on missions and encounter something unexpected.

Author's Note: Okay I am already planning a sequel to this one that will focus more around Jack and Carter so shippers be patient. Some chapters will be short and some may be quite long. Now that's enough of me blabbing, on with the story.

Part Three – Pesticide

Sg-1 stepped through the gate and found themselves standing on a stone platform in the midst of a strange forest. Judging from the temperature and the state of the plant life Sg-1 determined that it was springtime, nearing summer. At first it had seemed relatively normal as the trees and other foliage was the correct colour and they could hear the gurgling of a nearby river as well as other sounds like the wind rustling the leaves. All perfectly normal for a forest by Earth standards except for they noticed that one not so tiny thing was missing when they walked down the stone steps to the forest floor and took a closer look. There were no animals whatsoever. Not only that but there were no signs that there ever had been animals.

"Is it just me or does this seem a little odd to any of you?"

"There should be animals here sir, it just doesn't make any sense."

"Sam's right, I've never seen a forest without animals before. Maybe the inhabitants hunted them all to extinction?"

"Well that would explain the absence of animals, but what about the bugs? I seriously doubt that those would be such a sought after commodity."

"Pesticide?" suggested Jack.

"Sir, I don't think that-"

A twig snapped nearby. The bushes began to rustle, the sound and motion getting closer and closer. Sg-1 readied their weapons and when the rustling finally stopped what emerged from the foliage was something that none of them had expected. A teenage boy.

The boy looked about fourteen or maybe fifteen by Earth standards and looked about average. He wasn't tall or short, skinny or fat and there was nothing distinctive about his messy brown hair adorned with a couple of leaves and twigs or his cautious smile. What was striking were his eyes, they were a deep brown and brimming with the curiosity of adolescence. These were eyes that you would recognize immediately if you saw them again. He didn't seem even the least bit worried about the fact that he had several dangerous weapons pointed at him. He wore old pants that had been recently torn over the left knee and bore many stains as evidence of the owner's love of the outdoors and a simple t-shirt with a few stains of its own.

"You're not from around here are you?" he asked, staring curiously at their strange equipment and attire. When they shook their heads 'no' he continued, "My name is Edwin, I am from the city," he pointed back the way he had come, "Where are you from?"

"Far, far away?" Jack tried, not sure whether he should mention the Stargate or Earth at this point. He had no idea how advanced this civilization was and didn't want to cause any trouble for them or his team.

"The jungle? Or the land past the sea? I've never been across the sea, I've heard stories about-" he stared up at the great ring, "Wow, what's that?" he asked, pointing at the Stargate.

"It's called a Stargate," explained Daniel.

"What does it do?"

Jack responded quickly before Carter could start her longwinded and complicated explanation, "It lets us travel over great distances quickly."

"Oh, how does it work?"

"It is very complicated and hard to explain, say how about you take us to this city of yours and show us around a bit?"

"Sure." They started walking, following Edwin back the way he had come, "You never told me your names," he pointed out.

"Well I'm Jack, this is Carter-"

"Sam," she interrupted.

"And this is Daniel and Teal'c," he pointed to each team member in turn, "The place we are from is called Earth and as I said before it is very far away. I would not be surprised if you haven't heard of it." Jack didn't want to reveal that it was another planet until he was sure that these people could handle that fact.

As they continued on each of the members of Sg-1 was doing a different thing. Carter appeared to be admiring the scenery but was probably thinking about something much more complicated and hard to understand, Daniel was walking beside Edwin and bombarding him with questions about his people and culture and Teal'c, well he was just being Teal'c.

Jack chose to use this time to consider his problem and come up with a solution, which he may have just stumbled across. The concept was simple, but pulling it off without a hitch was going to be a tricky bit.

He knew that his file only existed on the computer and there were no hardcopies. What had to be done was a temporary restriction of access to his file, which was easier said than done. This plan presented two main problems. First of all he had to get into General Hammond's office, which wouldn't be too hard for someone with special ops training like him, but the second was the one he had to overcome.

Although Jack O'Neill was a man of many talents working with computers was not one of them. In fact it seemed like they downright hated him for some reason. That is if inanimate objects could hate, and although it seemed like they could Jack knew that his couldn't be the case. Though it was more comforting to think that it was the computer's fault when anything went wrong.

There was no way in hell that he could pull the scheme off on his own. He doubted that he could even find the file, never mind making it look like the access restriction was a glitch, or virus or something. He didn't have the necessary skills, but he did know a certain astrophysicist who could complete the task with no trouble at all. The only problem was convincing her to help him, now he needed an entirely new plan to do just that.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Once a Year

Author: Wander099

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate Sg-1 or anything affiliated with it, if I did believe me things would be pretty different.

Rating: T

Pairing: light Jack/Sam

Summary: Jack has a somewhat irrational fear and is trying to avoid dealing with it but to succeed he needs Carter's help. When she finds out exactly what he is up to will she help him? Meanwhile Sg-1 and Sg-2 both are on missions and encounter something unexpected.

Author's Note: Okay I am already planning a sequel to this one that will focus more around Jack and Carter so shippers be patient. Some chapters will be short and some may be quite long. Now that's enough of me blabbing, on with the story.

Part Four – Not The Brightest of Ideas

Slogging through the dense jungle the situation had not improved for Sg-2 one bit. More and more bugs seemed to attack with each step and each one of them wanted a taste of Sg-2. The team had tried absolutely everything they could think of to get rid of them, bug spray, fly swatters, making loud noises and even an ill-advised attempt made by Warren who had thought it would be a good idea to jump in a mud hole and then to proceed to roll around, coating himself entirely in mud.

In theory his idea was sound. The idea was that the mud would form a protective layer between the bugs and his skin. Some Earth animals do this and it works fine for them, however in this case things did not go quite as planned. Everything would have been fine if Warren had looked before he jumped in to the mud and seen that it was infested with creepy-crawlies.

Lesson learned: always look before you leap.

It took Ferretti and the rest of his team a full thirty minutes to calm their foolish teammate down and get him to stop running around screaming like an idiot. Eventually the mud was mostly removed and they continued on their way towards the ruins, Warren covered in twice as many bug bites as the others.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Once a Year

Author: Wander099

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate Sg-1 or anything affiliated with it, if I did believe me things would be pretty different.

Rating: T

Pairing: light Jack/Sam

Summary: Jack has a somewhat irrational fear and is trying to avoid dealing with it but to succeed he needs Carter's help. When she finds out exactly what he is up to will she help him? Meanwhile Sg-1 and Sg-2 both are on missions and encounter something unexpected.

Author's Note: Okay I am already planning a sequel to this one that will focus more around Jack and Carter so shippers be patient. Some chapters will be short and some may be quite long. Now that's enough of me blabbing, on with the story.

Part Five – Fears

Edwin led them into a small city. Unlike cities back on Earth this city was much cleaner with more trees, no towering skyscrapers, pollution belching factories or cars. Sg-1 followed him through a busy marketplace. The market was filled with people browsing through the brightly coloured stalls piled with exotic foods, clothes, jewelry and many other things that sg-1 couldn't quite identify.

As they walked people stopped what they were doing and stared. Sg-1, having visited a number of planets with people unused to strangers was used to this treatment, but Edwin was not.

"Why are they staring Daniel?" he asked.

"Well they haven't seen us before, it is only natural to be curious."

"Yes but they don't look very curious, they look sort of scared," he pointed out, "And besides we are used to travelers coming here."

Daniel took a closer look and realized that Edwin was right, the people looked a bit scared as they lay eyes upon Edwin and sg-1. Now normally Daniel would assume that Teal'c was the cause of the staring but then surely Edwin would have been frightened too if that were the case and besides this planet showed no signs of being under Goa'uld rule. The people looked far too healthy and happy for that to be the case.

"Edwin, have you ever heard of something called a Goa'uld?"

"Only in old legends."

"Oh, so where exactly are you taking us?"

"To my father, he owns the inn. You can stay there and tomorrow you can see our city leader."

"Why can't we see him today?"

"He's out of time, arrives back late tonight," Edwin explained, "We're almost there," he pointed at a small building not far down the street.

When the arrived at the inn, a man, presumably Edwin's father ran out, "Where have you been? You missed lunch and people are saying that there are some-" He stopped abruptly when he noticed sg-1. He grabbed his son's shoulder and moved them both out of ear shot of the team, "Who are they?"

"People from a far away place, I think they said Earth."

"So you brought them here? What were you thinking? Didn't you pay attention to those stories I told you when you were younger?"

"The legends? They were just made up to scare me right?"

"No, they were very real. That man with the tattoo on his forehead is a jaffa, a servant of the Goa'uld. Now that you have brought these people here we are all in danger, if there is one jaffa among them it is likely that they are all Goa'uld spies. If the Goa'uld have returned it means that they no longer have anything to fear from us or out Gods."

"But you said that our Gods would protect us from the Goa'uld always, as they have in the past."

"I know. This is unexpected. For now we will just have to play along until we know what they want. How much have you told them?"

"Nothing important. But dad, they asked me if I knew of the Goa'uld, why would they do that if they themselves were Goa'uld, jaffa or whatever?"

"I don't know. Just stay away from them for now. Go do your chores."

"Yes sir."

Edwin dashed away and his father approached sg-1, "I am sorry about that, my son has been neglecting his duties. I would be pleased to put you up for the night, I am afraid that we only have two rooms available so you will have to share."

"That's fine," Jack responded, "Daniel and Teal'c you can share and Carter is with me."

Normally Jack would have bunked with Daniel, but this was the perfect opportunity to convince her to assist him and he wasn't about to pass it up. He explained his decision by stating that Daniel snored and he was sick of it, then ignored Daniel's protests, though he could tell that Teal'c knew he had lied, as for Carter she was too busy trying to make Daniel shut up to consider what his motivation for the change in sleeping arrangements was.


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Once a Year

Author: Wander099

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate Sg-1 or anything affiliated with it, if I did believe me things would be pretty different.

Rating: T

Pairing: light Jack/Sam

Summary: Jack has a somewhat irrational fear and is trying to avoid dealing with it but to succeed he needs Carter's help. When she finds out exactly what he is up to will she help him? Meanwhile Sg-1 and Sg-2 both are on missions and encounter something unexpected.

Author's Note: Okay I am already planning a sequel to this one that will focus more around Jack and Carter so shippers be patient. Some chapters will be short and some may be quite long. Now that's enough of me blabbing, on with the story.

Part Six – The Ruins

After nearly four hours of walking sg-2 arrived at the ruins. Outside sat the MALP, which had gotten entangled in some strange wiggling vines and had been unable to return to the gate. One of the team members began to work on untangling the vines, while the others looked around.

The ruins appeared to be somewhere between a small and medium city surrounded by a great stone wall. In front of them was the gate and it was not closed. The structures did not look particularly stable; there were holes in the stone and evidence of several collapses in the wall and nearby buildings. The stone was crumbling and several different types of vines were fighting for the living space of the wall. The city appeared to be deserted for quite some time, there were no signs of anything living except the plants and the bugs, but at least it seemed that there were less of the latter in this area.

Ferretti really didn't want to go in there. Not just because of his team's bad luck and the inevitable injuries and other disasters that would probably occur if he did, but also because of this feeling he had in the pit of his stomach. He just knew that something bad was going to happen, more so than usual.

The captain attempting to untangle the MALP cursed and kicked the probe in rage; the vines would simply not come undone. Ferretti sighed and walked over, "Have you tried cutting the vines," he asked exasperatedly, knowing that the foolish soldier had not.

"Excellent idea sir," he promptly pulled out a knife and started to hack at the foliage, unfortunately sg-2's pattern of bad luck held. The vine split open and the captain looked triumphant for a spilt second then started shrieking loudly, "Oh my God! Spiders! Get them off me! Get them off me! ARGH! They're everywhere!"

While he was running around screaming Warren approached Ferretti, "Sir, I recognize this architecture, it's Aztec."

"Really? How do you know that? This is more doctor Jackson's area of expertise."

"Discovery channel."

"Ah. Do you know anything else about this place?"

"Yeah, there are bound to be a lot of traps so we should proceed with extreme caution. I suspect this gate is booby trapped as well, we should climb through one of the holes in the wall."

"Sounds like a plan."

Before he could inform the others of what Warren had told him and what their next step was going to be the captain ran back towards them still screaming loudly, "ARGH! They're biting me," he ran towards the gate. Ferretti yelled out a warning about traps, but it was too late the trap was sprung. Nine spears thrust out of the wall on each side and impaled the soldier, cutting off his screams. He died almost instantly.

"Oh dear," said Warren, he wasn't sure what else to say at this point as he was in shock to some degree (probably because he actually got something right).

No matter how hard they tried they could not dislodge the body from the spears. How am I ever going to explain this to Hammond? wondered Ferretti. Reluctantly he gave the order to continue and repeating Warren's warning about traps.

They climbed through a hole midway in the wall and dropped to the ground on the other side. Their suspicion that the city was abandoned seemed to be quite correct, there were a few birds, plenty of bugs and a couple of larger animals roaming about but surprisingly none of them took even the slightest interest in sg-2. Perhaps their luck was finally beginning to change.

They decided to stick together and peered into houses and other buildings as they walked through the ruins, looking for anything of technological or cultural value, but they found nothing. The lack of technology was not unexpected given the age of the ruins and other than a few skeletons they found nothing of interest. No paintings or carvings or even a statue.

This was puzzling. Had this been a thriving city at one time there should have been more to see, more evidence that people had once lived here. Just as sg-2 was about to give up and go home Ferretti saw a towering building ahead that resembled a pyramid. He directed his team that way and they continued what seemed like a worthless task.

None of them noticed the slight tremor in the ground beneath their feet, as they got closer to their destination.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Title: Once a Year

Author: Wander099

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate Sg-1 or anything affiliated with it, if I did believe me things would be pretty different.

Rating: T

Pairing: light Jack/Sam

Summary: Jack has a somewhat irrational fear and is trying to avoid dealing with it but to succeed he needs Carter's help. When she finds out exactly what he is up to will she help him? Meanwhile Sg-1 and Sg-2 both are on missions and encounter something unexpected.

Author's Note: Here's a chapter from Carter's POV. Okay I am already planning a sequel to this one that will focus more around Jack and Carter so shippers be patient. Some chapters will be short and some may be quite long. Now that's enough of me blabbing, on with the story.

Part Seven – Suspicion

Having already shown Daniel and Teal'c where they would be staying Edwin's father led Jack and Carter up a flight of stairs, leaving them after stating that if they should require anything not to hesitate to ask him.

The room was not large, but it was not small either. It was painted in earthy colours and was much homier than most inns back on earth. There was a window in-between two single beds that looked out onto the street below, which was busy with activity now that they were gone and not attracting all the attention. Carter wasn't sure what it was but something in the back of her mind was nagging at her, like there was something she had forgotten or overlooked.

Carter walked over to the window while Jack proceeded to explore the room. Judging from the position of the sun she estimated that it was late afternoon or early evening. Now that she had a higher vantage point and was out of the forest she could see the surrounding area. The forest where they had first set foot on the planet was vast and covered much of the terrain she could see, behind that were towering mountains, their tops hidden behind white vapour. If she hadn't known better she could have sworn that she was looking out a window back on Earth, the climate was just so similar as was the scenery.

There was the sound of something falling to the ground behind her, she whirled around and was met by the sight of her CO who had managed to knock over a small table and was presently sitting on the ground holding his arm in pain looking sheepish.

Carter righted the table then turned back to Jack, he had stood up but was still holding his arm, "Sir, let me take a look at that."

"Oh it's nothing," he protested.

But she would have none of that, "You're bleeding," she said flatly, "That could get infected."

"Alright," he said reluctantly, sitting down on the nearest bed and rolling up his slightly torn and now bloody sleeve.

Carter pulled out some bandages from her gear and an antiseptic wipe, "This is going to sting a bit," she warned as she started to clean the wound. Once she had wiped away all the blood and was sure that it was cleaned, Carter wrapped his arm tightly with bandages, "There, that should do it."

"Thanks Carter."

Later that night, after a delicious home cooked meal Carter realized exactly what had been bothering her. It was the sleeping arrangements, usually Daniel and Jack would share and she would be left with Teal'c. She would have said something when the Colonel had announced the sleeping arrangements but at the time she was too busy trying to make Daniel calm down about the snoring comment that Jack made.

In fact now that she thought about it that comment had probably been made as a distraction for her benefit. Jack was up to something, Carter had no idea what it could be this time, but from past experience she knew that it was bound to be interesting at the least. The last time that he had been behaving in a sneaky manner it had resulted in what was now known on base as the jello incident and Dr. Fraiser was still trying to think of a sufficient and legal revenge.

She looked over at Jack, lying innocently on his bed and staring up at the ceiling. Oh yes, he was up to something and she was going to find out what before they left this planet. She just had to be careful and not show her hand, if he found out that she knew he was up to something it would be doubly hard to figure it out.

TBC


End file.
